Database Update (Version 1.4.1)

By 池田正樹 (talk) masaki ikeda (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Argiope bruennichi, (c) Wikimedia Commons

Krehenwinkel & Tautz (2013) presented one of the few studies with the first information on high genetic diversity in spiders of the Caucasus Ecoregion. In their study populations of Argiope bruennichi (Scopoli, 1772) the Caucasus Ecoregion were the only populations — compared to populations in Europe, Russia and East Asia — with all haplotypes present, thus identifying this region as the probable refugial region for western European populations during glaciation events.
The well-known rapid northward range expansion of this species in the last decades was attributed by the authors to genetic admixture of cold-adaptation alleles from East Asian populations.

Ponomarev & Dvadnenko (2013) described Haplodrassus caucasius and sketch its distribution from Krasnodar Region eastwards to Dagestan.

Distribution map from Kovblyuk et al. (2013: 71).

Distribution map from Kovblyuk et al. (2013: 71).

Kovblyuk et al. (2013) described Pireneitega ovtchinnikovi and the male of P. spasskyi (Charitonov, 1946). Both species are vicarious species: P. ovtchinnikovi in the Western Caucasus Major and P. spasskyi in the Eastern Caucasus Major. The authors also identified all specimens of P. segestriformis (Dufour, 1820) from the Caucasus to be misidentified specimens of P. ovtchinnikovi.

With these updates, the database now runs as Version 1.4.1 (see details).

Release of Version 1.4

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Starting today, Caucasian Spiders runs under version number 1.4. New features implemented since the last version include:

Enjoy browsing! Feedback and constructive suggestions are always welcome!

This version should be cited like this:

Otto, S. (2014): Caucasian Spiders. A faunistic database on the spiders of the Caucasus. Version 1.4. Internet: http://caucasus-spiders.info/

Link Updates

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In cooperation with Daniel Gloor the links between the species datasheets and determination pages on Araneae – Spiders of Europe are now updated EuroSpidersLogofor all valid species (sensu Platnick Catalog) in the Checklist Caucasus.

The distribution maps on Araneae – Spiders of Europe are now also updated based on the CaucSpiders Database.

Large Database Update

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2012_AbdurakhmanovEtAl_DagestanCoverSmallAbdurakhmanov et al. (2012) presented a substantial update of spider records in the Caucasus: 1371 records – adding 116 species to the list of 243 species in the Checklist Dagestan as well as adding 87 species to the North Caucasus Checklist and 31 species to the Checklist Caucasus, which now lists 1107 species from 10997 records in this Ecoregion!

In total, Abdurakhmanov et al. (2012) added 83 original records and cited many more records from Abdurakhmanov & Alieva (2011: 353 records), Ponomarev et al. (2011a: 237 records),  Ponomarev et al. (2008: 217 records), Ponomarev et al. (2011b: 188 records) and several other sources.

Updated Geodata and Location page with Record List

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The geodata in the database is updated: (almost) every location is now linked to lat/long coordinates as well as its GeoNameId. I also checked the geodata for mistakes. As the main result, the Checklist Caucasus and the record lists for every species now essentially represent the most recent information given in our OntoWiki project „caucasus-spiders.info Version 2.0“.

The location pages now contain a list with the species records from this location, e.g. Tbilisi.

In the next weeks I plan to include country checklists and to improve the publications page (… links to PDF files, BibTeX codes etc.).

Stay tuned …

Checklist, Species and Locations

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The basic functions are now available:

  • The Caucasus Checklist is now linked to single species datasheets
  • The Species Datasheet (a sub-page of the Checklist Caucasus) now contains a map with the records and lists of original and cited records, which are linked to these locations and the relevant publication
  • The Single Location page (a sub-page of Locations) now contains some basic information on a given location (e.g. its area, country, region), some geoinformation and a reference to its data on geonames.org

Publications Page

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Today I added the Publications Page with a list of the 232 publications forming the basis of the database. All entries are linked to the page of the publication in question. So far, it  contains only the basic citation information and I plan to include more information here, e.g. links to the BibTeX code or the PDF links.

Write me an email if you wish to get an email copy earlier!

Relaunch of Caucasian Spiders Web Portal

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During the last years Sebastian Tramp and I explored the possibilities of representing the Caucasian Spiders Database by RDF schemes (-> http://db.caucasus-spiders.info/Area/152). Because of this work caucasian-spiders.info has not been updated and after a crashed server was not available on the web anymore.

Now I think it is time again to allocate some ressources to the main web portal on the spiders of the Caucasus. Have a look during the next weeks how the work is proceeding …